Being a student of biology, it’s my honour to wish Jonas Salk on his birthday. These are some 5major facts about him that everyone should know!

He was an American virologist (people who study viruses).

He is well known for his discovery of the first successful inactivated polio vaccine. Imagine what the world would be like if he had not discovered this vaccine.

Just to see this vaccine be available for the masses, he never got it patent!

The New York Times referred to him as the “Father of Biophilosophy”. He believed that his science is on the frontier of tremendous new discoveries and as a philosopher, he is of the view that humanists and artists have joined the scientists to achieve an understanding of man in all his physical, mental and spiritual complexity. Such interchanges might lead, he would hope, to a new and important school of thinkers he would designate as biophilosopher.

In the years after his discovery, many supporters, in particular the National Foundation “helped him build his dream of a research complex for the investigation of biological phenomena. It was called the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and opened in 1963 at California. Salk believed that the institution would help new and upcoming scientists along their careers

“Life is an error-making and an error-correcting process, and nature in marking man’s papers will grade him for wisdom as measured both by survival and by the quality of life of those who survive.”